Join the conversation!There are now 14 comments... what are your thoughts?

A lot of good material for amateur sleuthing is on this page:
1. The attacker had to look at a photograph of the victim to be sure that he had the right person. Thus the attacker did not know the victim. So the attacker is someone with whom the victim has no personal relationship. This suggests that the attacker is a contract killer.
2. The victim was in a train yard holding a wrench. So he probably worked at the train yard.So the question is who would hire a contract killer to kill an ordinary railroad worker?
3. Railroad workers are unionized. So maybe the victim was trying to organize a strike and the railroad’s management had him killed. Or maybe he discovered that union officials were taking money out of the union treasury for personal use in secret and the union had him killed. Or maybe this had nothing to do with the union and he discovered that the railroad was doing something illegal and the railroad’s management had him killed to keep him from going to the authorities.
I know that this is all just guesswork and I cannot tell if any of my guesses are right. Nevertheless, it will be fun to see if any of my guesses turn out to be true as the investigation unfolds.

You forget the possibility he learned something that implicated someone powerful, that wasn’t associated, (legitimately,) with the railroad.

For instance, he may have been a star witness in an upcoming or ongoing trial for a drug kingpin that was burying bails of cocaine in the coal cars to be fished out a couple states later.

Also, he may have been a witness to a crime that had nothing to do with the railroad, such as a murder, and it took the hitman this long to find him.

Third possibility is the “hitman” is a vigilante, who is avenging someone, say the woman in the picture. Perhaps he is SURE the guy did his sister wrong, and people who hurt his family don’t live to repeat their mistakes.

Too many possibilities to consider. Too many variables within the distinct possibilities.

What do American buffers look like, then? I’m a rail enthusiast over here in Britain, but I haven’t been to America since I became one. I’ve looked online but all I could see is the coupler on its own on trains without buffers. Do they just not have buffers?

American couplings do not require, nor do they use, buffers. Buffers are needed because the European coupling is a chain, and so provides no resistance to the cars moving together. American couplings don’t use a chain, being solid on each side (so they resist the cars moving together, not just coming apart).

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